Breathe
by Giedre
Summary: Esme's thoughts while Vivian and she are driving to Vermont with the rest of the pack. Oneshot for now.


**Neither Esme or Vivian are owned by me. That honor goes to Ms. Klause. **

**AN: Umh, I don't really know what I did with T(h?)omas. He's just driving in another car, I guess (:  
I wrote this story in a very sentimental kind of mother-daughter mood. Don't ask me what I was thinking.**

* * *

The dark street was slick with rain and shone with the pale orange glow of the streetlights. As the car passed swiftly under them, the lights shone onto the two occupants in a heartbeat pattern that was regular and persistent. 

The pack had been driving all day, and Vivian had lost her patience with the trip barely after it had started. She'd never been good in confined spaces, and the thought of being stuck in a car for hours on end had set her teeth on edge. Granted, Esmé knew that her daughter hadn't been the only one. However, if they were going to get to the inn in any reasonable amount of time, they had to drive. Flying was too dangerous for their kind, or at least, Gabriel hadn't wanted to risk it. That many werewolves in such a confined space couldn't possibly be a good idea.

Esmé had been grateful to the goddess that her daughter had fallen asleep hours ago. They still had a while to go before they got to the inn. Vivian had been irritable all through the first part of the journey, and now that night had fallen in earnest, it seemed to be taking even longer than it should have. The darkness pressed against the glass of the windows, driving even Esmé to irrational thoughts of claustrophobia. No, too long in a car wasn't really good for anyone.

The radio was off, and the silence encouraged Esmé's musings, which she gave in to. There was nothing else better to do while following the bumper of Rolf's car driving in front of her own. Gabriel had chosen to travel in the evening, much to the relief of the teenagers and the dismay of the adults. Esmé hated driving at night, but she hadn't been about to pick a fight about it. There'd been enough pointless fighting lately.

Unconsciously, she glanced over at the passenger seat of her car. Vivian was slumped against the window, her head buried in a rolled up sweatshirt and her eyes shut, fast asleep. For a moment, Esmé was reminded of Vivian as a child, growing up in West Virginia. Before her father's death, before the time in the city and the challenges she'd had to face in the past year, all of which had destroyed what remnants of her childhood she still had locked inside of her.

Now, it seemed like she'd accepted the responsibilities of being head bitch, and even if she was still getting used to the position, Esmé was just relieved that she'd accepted at all. For a while, Esmé had been very worried about her only child. She knew first hand that sometimes, destiny had a mind of its own, and you had to just go along with the ride or be swept under the currents of time forever.

It was just as they were heading off the freeway that Vivian shifted in her seat and blinked here eyes slowly, for a moment looking like she didn't quite know where she was. Her dark eyes swept over the bleak darkened landscape outside and then landed squarely on her mother.

"Hey, Vivie. Nice nap?" Esmé asked, and chuckled when Vivian just barked out a frustrated laugh and settled against the back of her seat, her slim gold fingers already at the radio dial. It took the girl only a minute to find a station she liked, cranking it up loud when she did. Esmé noted with surprise and slight revulsion that the sounds pounding out of the car's speakers sounded suspiciously like the Five… Four's music. The baseline was such that Esmé could hardly hear the words, but Vivian seemed to recognize it.

"Viv, I've been driving all day. I'm not really in the mood for this." She told her daughter, nodding her head at the radio. To pacify her, Vivian turned the volume down two notches, hardly creating any change at all. Esmé just sighed loud enough for Vivian to hear, but decided not to fight the girl on it. It had been a long day. The last thing she wanted was a fight with her daughter.

"How much longer?" Vivian asked her, eyes wide. Esmé kept her eyes on the road as she answered. The terrain was slowly growing more and more rugged as they got farther and farther away from human habitation and closer to the Vermont forests.

"About an hour."

"I slept for that long?" Vivian looked incredulous, and Esmé had to snicker.

"You completely missed our last pit stop. Gabriel wanted to wake you, but I told him to let you sleep." Vivian laughed again at this, finally smiling. "No doubt Finn and Willem wanted to as well, right?"

Esmé grinned back. "No, Finn was deciding whether or not you deserved to get water-gunned in the face."

"I assume you stopped him?"

"Gabriel did." Esmé told her, smiling at the memory of Gabriel's expression when he learned about the boys' plans to wake his mate with something less than grace. Vivian grinned as well, but as she turned towards the window, the look vanished and another frustrated look crossed her eyes. At the look on Vivian's face, Esmé repeated. "Only an hour left, Vivian." She cocked her head in the direction of the backseat and added, "I grabbed a muffin and some Coke for you, although it's probably flat by now." Nevertheless, Vivian scrambled around behind Esmé's car chair for a moment before pulling out a paper bag labeled "Cinnabun" and extracting from it a paper-wrapped package and cardboard cup of soda.

"Are you hungry?" Esmé asked after Vivian just stared at the food for a moment.

Vivian nodded silently, sighing softly under her breath. After a moment of silence between them, with only the clashing drums pounding from the speakers to distract either of them from their thoughts, Vivian agitatedly shoved the radio's on/off switch. The ensuing hush seemed almost unnatural, but was soon broken by Vivian, who had yet to touch her food.

She turned towards Esmé reluctantly, but her next words sounded almost scared in tone, and Esmé had to restrain herself from taking her eyes off the road to comfort her child.

"It's going to be better now, Mom. Won't it?"

Esmé would have given anything to be able to lie to her daughter, but knew she couldn't. Vivian was a woman, not to mention pack leader, and she didn't - couldn't - be coddled any longer.

"I don't know, Viv. I guess that's up to you and Gabriel, isn't it?" Vivian's eyes widened slightly for an instant, and she turned to stare out the front window again. Something akin to panic flickered in their warm depths, but then she pulled herself out of her fear and watched her mother before answering.

"Yeah, I guess it is." She nodded carefully, slumping back into the car seat. Esmé wondered if this was the first time the girl had actually stopped to think about all the responsibilities that would become part of her life in the next few months.

"You'll help me, right?" The unexpected question caused Esmé to flick a glance of surprise at her daughter, but once the question had sunk into her sleep deprived brain, she nodded, smiling.

"Vivie, the last thing I would ever want to do is leave you stranded to figure things out on your own." This caused them both to laugh a little, and Esmé was still smiling when she saw the road sign she'd been waiting for. 'Lodge' written in white letters on a green background, the sign looked like it hadn't been fixed in a very long time, and Gabriel had warned them earlier that the inn would probably look the same way.

"Almost there." Vivian breathed her words, and Esmé could hear the hesitation even now, knowing that her daughter had a lot on her mind to be worried about. However, the light in Vivian's eyes bellied the uncertainty of her voice, and Esmé knew, better than she would have admitted to anyone had they asked, that her daughter was ready for the future that was screaming headlong at her. Vivian was tough, and she had her friends and family surrounding her to help her. Esmé knew that there was nothing that could stand in her daughter's way now. The future was hers.

* * *

**So, er... Read and Review,I guess. Anybody know anything about the movie they're supposedly making based on this book? All I know is that Vivian's gonna be in her twenties, and it's going to take place in Europe somwhere. Also, that it's been in production forever, but they haven't been able to actually go ahead with everything because of a bunch of complications.**

**I dunno. I'm excited :P**


End file.
